The Gandy Side

For me, Shubuta was my "city". I knew it was a small town as a child, but it provided a few things I thought one needed for day to day life. There were gas stations, a corner store, grocery store, volunteer fire department, parks, and two factories that employed some of the people in the town. This was a far cry from neighboring Waynesboro and Quitman, which in the early eighties, shared similar offerings. The contrary experience to city living was that of the country, and not far from my home in northeastern Wayne County, I received a taste of this life.

We called the community St. John because of a small baptist church in the area, which now that I think of it is funny to me because many of the residents were not members of that church. There is a winding road would one day be named Horseshoe Loop Road; it was the home to my grandparents and specifically the Gandy family, my mother's family. It featured all the amenities to rival that of a good city. My family raised their own crops, chickens, cows, and I am sure somebody had goats. It was rare for me to see the interior of homes when we visited; other than my grandparents and great grandparents, I can't think of more than two other homes I entered as a child. I would learn that people were particular about who they would allow in their homes.

The Gandy family for me began with my grandfather DeLunzo and grandmother Augustine, or Bee to some. My grandmother told us many times that she and my granddad met when they were nearly 16 and had been a couple since about that time. They had eight children, five girls and three boys, and from my earliest memories, only the three oldest had moved to live on their own.

Granny, as I called her and she herself, is a loving woman. At the time, I enjoyed weekends there because instead of cartoons, Saturday mornings meant Granny would make biscuits, grits, and bacon. She would pour syrup on the plate to have with the biscuits. She would then clean the house and wash clothes while singing all before going to out. With five teenagers still under her roof, there were plenty of eyes to watch over my cousin, Monek and I.

It was here that I picked up most of my socialization skills. I was an only child at home and did not interact with others as much even though I played with children my age from time to time. None of that compared to the interaction I had with my aunts and uncles and how I witnessed them among one another. At some point, Annie became my favorite of my mom's siblings; not that I had an ill feelings for the others though. My aunts Shirley, Delilah, and her would also play a huge factor in my respect for women as I grew older since I never had an any sisters.

I could never figure in my mind where my grandfather fit into everything while I was growing up. He went off to work early in the morning and came back some time before the sun went down. He hunted and fished. There were a collection of rifles in the house and his fishing boat in the yard. On Sunday mornings, he'd go to Sunday school and church because he was a deacon. There were stories of him being a tough character in his younger days, but other than his deep, thundering voice and stature, there was nothing that prove this to be true.

Granddad's sickness and passing brought a lot into perspective as to his role in the family. Me being a father and husband myself had given me a sample of the pressures a family faces, but apply to his life when it was not common for a husband and a wife to be employed, the treatment of Blacks in the South, and economic factors it became obvious that holding a family together through thick and thin is a feat to be applauded. During his funeral I tried to relay this point:

Paw Paw, I've always loved you, and becoming a man myself made me respect you and  my father so much more. You made being the man of the house seem easy. Our family is beautiful. Everyone has moved in their own way; all of that is because you made the sacrifice to make sure your home had what was needed. That is to be commended and revered. 

This Town O' Mine, Shubuta

There are people who insist that Black Americans must forget the pains of their past and "get over it" when an issue containing a racial element arises. That's an easy pill to swallow for someone who has had little to no pain manifested in their history, or in the case for some Blacks, to have been so far removed from the pain for one reason or another. My upbringing and hometown have both work in accordance to mold my understanding of not only race relations on a wide level but in day to day interactions.

History has taught me that Shubuta, MS was a bustling town on the path to greatness. Once one of the largest towns on the route from Mobile, AL, this town was home to just over 600 people by the time I was born in 1980. Unknown to me, the Old South was still present years after the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's. Jim Crow may have been outlawed, but the stains of an oppressive society was visible throughout the small town. Black residents did not live near the center of town for one; even the more prominent Black residents chose to reside in areas on the outer edges of town or out of town altogether. Many homes were small 2 to 3 bedroom wooden homes, mobile homes (many modified), or brick homes that existed as part of a community we called Pecan Grove. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the people who would play a role in my childhood lived in low lying section of town on the east side of town, Pecan Grove in the southwest area, or the far west end of town referred to as Red Hill, which was also home to the Shirley Owens School.

Shirley Owens was the school for Blacks during the time of segregation. I've been told that since there was no bus system, many of the students walked to the school; it was just over a mile from my first home. Less than a block from our house was the location of Shubuta High School. It was still standing but had not been in use for years since the schools of the county had been consolidated down to two after integration. Shirley Owens became a mill some time before I was born.

Then there was the bridge. I was in for a shock when I learned the real meaning around the time I was 10...

I recall seeing the bridge once in my lifetime. Not many people are willing to visit the area due to its remote location and the history surrounding it, but neither would you find many to speak on it during that time. The taboo treatment of the racism of my town set me on a path to never want to return after I became an adult. To know that there are still bloodlines in the town related to those that were hung by the thugs of the city, really brought home the aspect of what it meant and still means to be Black in Mississippi, the south, and America. My mind will never let me think that the bloodlines of those thugs were also still present in the town as I walked among them as a young boy. Both hangings occurred within 25 years of one another and the most recent less than 40 years before my birth. It's not as ancient history as racial pacifists would lead us to believe.

Many other aspects of this town and its race relations would play an integral part in my development for years.